Facebook turns Messenger into a customer service tool

Facebook last week formed partnerships with two retailers — online apparel site Everlane and flash sale site Zulily — to let them use its Messenger Platform as a customer service tool.

Through integration with ZenDesk, retailers can have "personal, real-time conversations," with customers through the standalone messaging app, according to Facebook. These may include updates on order confirmation, shipping delivery times and receipt confirmation. Delivery time updates include a map indicating where the item is located along its route.

The chat service partnership will also allow stores to "be available to your customers in a more personal way and answer any questions that come up." An example was given of a customer deciding to switch his sweater order to the color black.

In a separate release, Zendesk said customer service teams can manage multiple Messenger chats at once, collaborate with one another to solve a customer’s issue, and access chat history to easily continue a conversation after a break.

messenger screens

The assumption in much of the coverage was that Messenger may evolve into an e-commerce tool. Facebook offered two examples of how it could drive commerce. One was a message to a customer from Zulily: "Good news! The item you wanted is back!" The other was a message back from an Everlane customer on a shipping update: "Excited for this to get here! Can I buy another one in grey?"

According to Facebook, more than 600 million people are using Messenger every month, and it accounts for more than 10 percent of all mobile calls made over Wi-Fi.

Writing for Fast Company, Mark Wilson noted that Messenger could become just another annoying customer service tool if brands rely on automated-answering options to save labor costs. With texts tougher to ignore than e-mail, fliers and even phone calls, it could lead to intrusive marketing pushes, although he held out hope.

He wrote, "It’s enticing to imagine a day when I can text Amazon, ‘Send me four of the cheapest, best-rated 60W light bulbs you’ve got.’ Here’s hoping we can trust businesses to honor our wishes, and let us dictate the conversation on our terms."

BrainTrust

Discussion Questions

How open will consumers be to communicating with retailers via messenger apps? Does Facebook Messenger offer more potential as a customer service or e-commerce tool?

Poll

11 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Max Goldberg
Max Goldberg
8 years ago

Millennials will love it. Boomers will adapt to it. But it all depends on retailers using it the way consumers desire and not as a push advertising vehicle. As the article says, Messenger is already used daily by millions of consumers. It’s a natural extension for retailers to enter into the conversation, provided consumers are permitted to set the boundaries of the conversation. For Facebook, Messenger will compete with Twitter. If handled properly, this could be a big win for consumers and Facebook.

Ralph Jacobson
Ralph Jacobson
8 years ago

I think it’s another potential channel for consumers to leverage, and time will tell which platforms succeed when the dust settles—if it ever does.

Kenneth Leung
Kenneth Leung
8 years ago

For those who are using Facebook Messenger as their communication tool, this is just like picking up the phone. As long as they use it as a service and not a marketing tool post-contact, I think it is just another day in the omnichannel world.

Robert DiPietro
Robert DiPietro
8 years ago

Customers will want to use whichever app is easier for them. Facebook Messenger may have a broader install for the boomer demo than the Millennials. Communication will be easier for the consumer and provide a known environment.

Vahe Katros
Vahe Katros
8 years ago

The question of whether consumers will use messaging to communicate with businesses or use it for e-commerce is not as interesting as what is implied in the title of this post: Facebook turns Messenger into a customer service tool. Here are some takeaways.

Story 1 – Facebook as the new customer communications channel – During their recent developer conference Facebook confirmed that they were going to leave Instagram and Whatsapp alone. They recognized the uniqueness and complexity and said, we’ll just make an amazing messaging hub so that billions of people can speak to every business who has a Facebook presence (basically everyone).

Story 2 – Facebook embraces the plumbing business. By freeing up their developers from cannibalizing their portfolio companies, these developers can work on the complexity we know so well here, namely, the complexity of linking the back office with the front office.

Story 3 – Zendesk is now the leader in the Facebook/back office customer communications management space. Why not say this? As a person who remembers that boring past when vertical markets hung on such integrations, and when retailers would say, finally, someone wrote the code. Zendesk wrote the code.

Story 4 – Retailers are now working on customer support via Facebook (vs. Twitter). This is an evolving practice now—cool.

Same as it ever was. The front office and the back office are now a little bit closer for billions of people and millions of companies and Facebook is dedicating itself to that vertical market problem vs. managing selfies. That’s another takeaway.

Lee Kent
Lee Kent
8 years ago

Consumers have already proven their willingness to communicate with businesses via apps. This practice will continue as long as businesses don’t step over the line. The customer has to be in the drivers seat.

While I can see using a messenger type app to buy something from a shop who knows me and that I trust to give me what I want, I’m not feelin’ ecommerce as a first move.

Stick with customer service, for my 2 cents.

Gajendra Ratnavel
Gajendra Ratnavel
8 years ago

Instant messengers add convenience and speed over email. Providing messenger communication is great but this can get really tricky on the back end for the retailer. It will basically be like an online web chat with the addition of “sessions” and “history” to track and continue conversations.

The benefits of this is pretty awesome though. Use of chat information for the retailer to enhance customer service, understand customers, build better profiles, etc., assuming people use this more than they would use web chat. The benefits to Facebook are pretty awesome as well, as they further improve their targeted advertising.

Carrie Vogler
Carrie Vogler
8 years ago

As mobile usage continues to skyrocket, opening this avenue for communication with a brand makes sense. Research proves that Millennials value texting as a means of meaningful conversation and use their phones this way much more than any other generation. And this is the exact reason it is imperative that retailers respect what has typically been regarded as an intimate conversation space. One auto-generated response, one scripted conversation, or any other disingenuous “tells” will undermine the personalized experience this new feature is trying to create. I believe, if executed meaningfully, brands can use this tool to create a delightful customer experience—bringing positive customer service directly to their shoppers’ fingertips.

Sona Sharma
Sona Sharma
8 years ago

I think consumers will find it very useful to interact with brands via chat, especially on mobile. Today’s customers want information available to them when they want and how they want it. Keeping that in mind, in-app conversations make perfect sense. The question is how many brands will be able to scale their customer service team to the number of questions and live chat requests coming their way?

Arie Shpanya
Arie Shpanya
8 years ago

This has a lot of potential for improving customer service (more personal and timely responses), but it involves a lot of trust. Facebook is personal for a lot of users. They reserve it for friends and family. With retailers jumping into the mix, they’ve got to really respect shoppers and not use it as another advertising medium.

Live chat has proven to be useful for numerous retailers, but integrating it with Facebook takes it to the next level.

Shep Hyken
Shep Hyken
8 years ago

Another channel to communicate with the customer—or the customer to communicate with the retailer. Will it work? It’s all about the tipping point. When enough people are using it, it makes sense. Otherwise, evaluate the demographics of your customer to determine if they would embrace the channel. If so, consider it. If not, keep an eye on it to see if it picks up interest and use. It’s all about critical mass.

It’s not so much a new technology as it is a new use for the technology. Either way, it may take “training” the customer to use it.